The intellectual structure of the competence-based management

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to carry out a bibliometric analysis of the Competence-Based Management (CBM) field. From the first books dedicated to CBM (Hamel & Heene, 1994; Sanchez, Heene, & Thomas, 1996; Heene & Sanchez, 1997) to more recent publications, the CBM field experienced a significant development. As the International Conferences on Competence-Based Management is a place for exchange and development of new ideas and applications, it appears to be central to the consolidation of the field. The conferences are followed by the publication of a series of books and a journal (Research in Competence-Based Management). Therefore it seems particularly adapted to use these publications in order to analyze the CBM field. We identified 12 books and 3 journal issues published between 1994 and 2005. This corresponds to a total of 185 papers written by 213 different authors, and a total of 7,958 references cited in these papers. We present the results of our research in three steps. First, we analyze the profile of the authors of the papers. This leads to the identification of the most prominent authors and the identification of the authors' country of origin. Second, we analyze the content of the papers. We identify the type of the papers (theoretical or empirical), the main methodology (qualitative or quantitative), and the keywords. Third, we analyze the references. This allows the identification of the most frequently cited references, and their historical structure. In order to deepen the latter analysis, we perform a co-citation analysis to identify networks of references. The overall results lead to a better understanding of the organization of the CBM field.

Citation

Prévot, F., Branchet, B., Boissin, J.-P., Castagnos, J.-C. and Guieu, G. (2010), "The intellectual structure of the competence-based management", Sanchez, R., Heene, A. and Ede Zimmermann, T. (Ed.) A Focussed Issue on Identifying, Building, and Linking Competences (Research in Competence-Based Management, Vol. 5), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 231-258. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1744-2117(2010)0000005012